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Design and implementation of full solid state high voltage nanosecond pulse generators

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF FULL SOLID STATE HIGH
VOLTAGE NANOSECOND PULSE GENERATORS
by
Tao Tang
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRO-PHYSICS)
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Tao Tang

As a scheme of delivering accumulated energy in short period of time to gain high instant power, pulsed power technology is widely used to generate high power transient electric pulses. In recent years, low energy (tens of mJ to a few J per pulse) nanosecond range pulse width applications such as electroperturbation of cells, food disinfection, and pollution reduction gain a lot of attention. The improvement of solid state switches makes it possible to build a full solid state pulsed power unit to generate nanosecond pulses. Comparing with traditional gas switch generators, the solid state generators have the merits of high reliability, long life time, simple supporting circuitry and less cost.; In this dissertation, solid state pulsed power systems will be discussed in system, device and topology levels and several application-specific nanosecond high voltage pulse generators are presented.; First, pulsed power system is investigated on a system level. Three major sub-systems and their abstract models are introduced. Then, typical solid state electrical components for pulsed power system are discussed. After that, several typical pulse-forming topologies are introduced as fundamental building blocks for pulsed power system.; Special designed Diode Opening Switch (DOS) is able to generate nanosecond megavoltage range pulses. A modified topology is invented to use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) diode and get comparable performance. This method makes it possible to make a compact pulsed power system generating nanosecond pulses with several kVs amplitude.; Based on this new topology, three pulse generators are designed: One pulser is designed for electroperturbation study, which is able to deliver 7.5 kV 5ns pulses into 10 ohm load. The second one is designed for localized skin cancer therapy research which takes 50 ohm catheter load and generates 6kV 20ns pulses. The third one is developed for transient plasma ignition which used in a single cylinder test engine and delivers 60kV 20ns pulses.; Inspired by studies in pulsed electric field gas discharge imaging, a new topology of pulse adding is invented for transient plasma ignition. A pulse adding system is built on this topology and demonstrated in a pulsed detonation engine testing system.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF FULL SOLID STATE HIGH
VOLTAGE NANOSECOND PULSE GENERATORS
by
Tao Tang
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING ELECTRO-PHYSICS)
May 2008
Copyright 2008 Tao Tang